What Does Psalm 18:15 Mean?
Then the streambeds of waters appear, and the foundations of the world are uncovered at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.THE KEY
The LORD’s breath-wind uncovers what lies beneath the world’s surface, bringing its hidden foundations into view.
THE MEANING
The world’s hidden channels and foundations come into view under the LORD’s rebuke. The image is fierce: a blast of breath and wind from God’s nostrils moves through creation and lays its depths bare.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The visible surface is not the whole of what exists; what lies beneath it can be exposed.
THE ROOT
וַיִּגָּלוּ
vayyiggālû
GROWS FROM
גלה
To uncover, reveal, or disclose.
“Discovered” carries the image of something uncovered, not merely inferred. The world’s foundations are exposed as though a covering has been pulled away.
ALSO GROWS
galah: To uncover or reveal.
גָּלָה
This verbal form makes the verse’s discovery an act of bringing what was hidden into the open.
megalleh: Reveals or discloses.
מְגַלֶּה
Job uses this form for God revealing deep things out of darkness, a close root echo of the foundations laid bare here.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
Moving air: wind and breath.
“the blast of the breath of your nostrils” in this verse is ruach. Hebrew uses one word, רוּחַ (ruach), for wind and breath. Beside נְשָׁמָה (neshamah, breath), it pictures breath moving with the force of wind.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind.
רוּחַ
The KJV’s “blast” carries the force of moving air that drives the waters back.
ruach: Breath.
רוּחַ
The same word joins the force of the wind to the breath in the image of God’s nostrils.
מוֹסְדוֹת
mosdot
GROWS FROM
יסד
To establish or lay a foundation.
The word for the world’s foundations comes from a root about establishing something in place. What is set beneath the world is not beyond sight here: its underlying supports are opened to view.
ALSO GROWS
yasad: To establish or lay a foundation.
יָסַד
The verb points to the act of setting in place what the verse now shows exposed.
yesod: Foundation or basis.
יְסוֹד
This related noun names the underlying support that gives shape to what stands above it.
THE PATTERN
Divine force exposes what lies hidden beneath the visible surface.
At your rebuke they flee; at the thunder of your voice they hurry away.And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
He uncovers the depths out of darkness, and brings out to light the deepest darkness.Psalm 18:15’s “were discovered” and Job’s “discovereth” share the Hebrew root גלה (galah), meaning to uncover or reveal. Both verses show what lies deep and hidden being brought into the open.
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